Insert! Chinatown Storefront Library

This project was initiated by the Department of Micro-Urbanism, an art and design initiative founded by Marrikka Trotter (MDes ’09).Bushmann-Copp and Swaidan designed, fabricated and constructed INSERT! for the Chinatown Storefront Library, an innovative, compact and flexible program space. The design is modular, portable, and reconfigurable; it can be adapted to multiple locations and changes in use as the Storefront Library project continues and changes over time. At the end of the Storefront Library project, the INSERT! components will be reused for other purposes within the community.

The Chinatown Storefront Library will transform an empty storefront in Boston’s Chinatown into a temporary public library. Operating for approximately three months, the project will provide urgently needed services for a community that has been without a library since 1956, while creating a new advocacy tool for Chinatown’s efforts for a permanent library.